August 3rd

Today was a science day... We got out final stats together and practiced our presentations. We then made final presentations to the finca family in a true scientific fashion. It was a great fun filled science day. Below are the findings of the 3 groups
 Los Lobos 

(Alec Englander, Drew Julius, Emily Moore, Ryan Hedblom)

This last week was one of hard, yet frantic work. Our group set out to help reduce the immense detriment of Leaf Cutter ants on Agriculture. We hoped to achieve this through the use of the Ginger Plant, as it is in great abundance at Finca la Anita and is a Eco-friendly solution. We conducted various lab and field trials, spraying solutions of Ginger leaf and Ginger root on the trunks of trees and on leafs placed on foraging trails (ant highways). Long story short, many of our trials were conducted erroneously and we were forced to discard hours of work. We would have loved to redo duct our trials but given the brevity of our stay we had to move on. This was undoubtedly a setback to our groups overall progress towards a strong conclusion backed by statistical data, however we were able to salvage some data and learn from our mistakes. In the end we were able to conclude, qualitatively (through observation), that the Ginger leaf solution was less effective than the Ginger Root solution and that the Ginger Root solution was not a viable economic solution to the ant problem (the cost out-weighed the Benefits). In summation, though our experiment was far from perfect, we learned a lot about the Scientific Process and the great extent of details required for a statistically valid, conclusive experiment. 

 The STP's were Nick Nesbitt, Natalie Hunninghake, and Tillery Bailey. Our experiment had two parts.  We tested the effect of citronella and root beer plant on fungal health and growth, and ant foraging activity. 

  In the lab we set up sub colonies and treated them with teas that we made from chopped citronella stem or root beer plant flower. We charted the change in mass  and observed the change in fungal  health. The fungal health deteriorated with the addition of the teas and eventually the control groups, water, deteriorated also.  The ants even moved their queen to protect her from the dying, damaged fungus! We ran our stats test, and sadly our quantitative results were not statistically significant. Our qualitative results were quite interesting because of the great effect the plants had on fungal health. 

  Our field experiment was less successful,  mainly because of human error. We made a citronella or root beer and oil paste. We then coated  a leaf and put it in an active foraging trail.  We measured the change in surface area after thirty minutes. These results were interesting, but also statistically invalid. 

  Local farmers might try to pump citronella dust or ash into a colony as a natural fungicide..

Our group, the pollos hermanos tested the deterring effects of cinnamon, hot peppers, and ashes on the leaf-cutter ants. The members of pollos hermanos were me, Dane Falline, Toshi Higashi, Nikki Degenereffe, and Hannah Charpentier. We found through our observations that both cinnamon and hot peppers were effective deterrents, as well as mineral oil one of our solvents and control tests. When combined the cinnamon and pepper were much more potent. We also tested ash. Ash was the most practical and cost effective substance we tested, and also the best deterrent for the ants. The local farmers will try to pump ashes into the ant colonies as an Eco-friendly and cost effective alternative to the chemicals they currently use due to the findings of our research and experimentation.